


Rebuilding Defenses

by Persephone_Kore



Series: Woggleburg AU [2]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Depression, F/M, Forced Prostitution, Mention of Mind Control, contemptuous language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 04:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2136198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone_Kore/pseuds/Persephone_Kore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill and Barry took the Jägers to fight the Other, and this way they both came back. But all is not well with Bill, and Europa may have more problems than when they started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rebuilding Defenses

* * *

A month after they got back, Barry was almost getting used to taking Jägers into towns. 

They'd found the Other. They'd won. They'd won _handily_ \-- he and Bill would have won alone, probably, but the enemy had obviously been expecting them. The enemy... had not been expecting an army of Jägers. They'd taken back Bill's daughter, an unexpected bright spot. They'd stopped the attacks. 

They'd found out the Other was Lucrezia all along. They'd found out the love of Bill's life and their best friend had been conspiring. Lucrezia had made the most of the chance they gave her, all right.

Barry still felt like he'd been scraped raw inside. And Bill was still the same as before -- quiet, deadly, single-minded, as if he were living inside a lens. Now the object wasn't to get Lucrezia back, but to repair the damage she'd done. 

Which meant charging from one crisis to the next, or the nearest, occasionally trying to remember when that had been fun. Fighting wasps, fighting revenants, rebuilding towns and defenses. That part, at least, he could enjoy a little. 

Looking after Agatha. She wasn't happy about being taken from the Geisterdamen, who had evidently doted on her in spite of the horrifying plan to replace her mind with Lucrezia's. The Jägers' adoration seemed to mollify her -- after all she wasn't even three yet -- and she was learning Romanian with a rather distinct Mechanicsburg accent. Bill loved his daughter, looked after her, and explained all of the advanced vocabulary when he answered her startlingly precocious questions... but he loved her distractedly and Barry didn't talk to him about whether the Geisterdamen could already have moved Lucrezia into her head. 

He finally voiced that fear to some of the Jägergenerals, though, after they'd steered him and Bill into another inn that still maintained a decent bar. (They kept doing this, with varying selections of the rest of the troops. At least it got Bill away from building ever more elaborate death rays all night.) Possibly word had actually outpaced them, although how it managed when travel was this curtailed Barry couldn't imagine, because all the bar staff went around taking orders from the Jägers as if they expected to be paid afterward rather than eaten. 

"Ho!" Khrizhan clapped him on the shoulder. (Khrizhan was apparently experimenting to determine how hard he could do that without knocking Barry sideways when he was in better condition than the first night the Jägers had joined them -- in other words, not about to fall over anyway. He seemed pleased that it was harder than he'd initially thought.) "Hyu don't need to vorry about dot. Iz not Lucrezia."

Barry gave him a quizzical look. "How can you tell?"

"She vas too happy to see Jägerkin. Some leedle gorlz might be afraid, yah?" Goomblast grinned widely, with all his teeth. "Miz Agatha vas not scared. But she vas not gloatink, either, vhen she smiled back. Und she does not ask de boys to do schtupid stuff."

Agatha was currently playing pattycake with Ognian for about the seventieth time that night. Barry asked warily, "What kind of stupid stuff did Lucrezia ask for?"

"Iz not important," Zog said firmly. "Miz Agatha does not tink ve are leedle pets. Iz goot." 

Barry rubbed a hand across his forehead and insisted on an explanation. The generals tried to downplay it but painted a disheartening picture, if no longer a surprising one, of Lucrezia testing how far she could push the Jägers. He suspected the pettiness had been because she knew they were obeying her for Bill's sake. 

His mother hadn't bothered giving them orders, except when she was deep in the madness place, and sometimes then they'd actually cooperated. If it was really important she'd ask him or Bill to talk to them. Bill had remembered, and told them to treat Lucrezia well. 

Barry looked over at the table where his brother was listening dead-eyed to a grateful mayor and drinking a little too heavily, and agreed that Bill didn't need to hear this right now. 

He went over to join them -- Bill was being practically chatty compared to his recent behavior, but the mayor couldn't be expected to know that -- and wound up taking over most of the conversation. The mayor seemed relieved. Barry couldn't blame him. He was relieved to have people besides Bill to talk to lately himself. 

The woman bringing their drinks, Miruna, didn't seem bothered. She flirted lightly with both of them until nearly the end of the evening, when she said to Bill, "Wish I could take you home with me. I've got a room upstairs."

And Bill said politely, "If you like."

Barry nearly choked; Miruna nearly dropped her pitcher. Propositions weren't unusual, or at least they hadn't been (even for Bill, even since the wedding), but nobody had seriously expected Bill to _accept_ for years. "What?" she blurted. "I thought you were looking for your wife!"

Bill looked up at her with an expression so bleak Barry almost turned his own eyes away. "We found the Other. She's dead." 

Which was perfectly true, and completely failed to touch what they had really discovered. 

Miruna's eyes filled with tears. She set the pitcher down and hugged Bill, seduction apparently forgotten for the moment, and he shut his eyes and exhaled long and slow. But when she stepped back, he stood and took her hand, and when they went upstairs it was together. 

Barry stared after them for a moment while the Jägers called encouragement. Miruna faltered a little and Barry saw her ears turn red, but life in Castle Heterodyne had made it very difficult to embarrass Bill. He put an arm around her and they disappeared into her room. 

Miruna was cheerful when Barry saw her, briefly, the following morning. Bill was not exactly, but he kissed Miruna goodbye and told her that if she happened to find herself pregnant she should -- since travel would still be chancy for a while -- send word to Mechanicsburg for an escort. 

"What was _that_?" Barry demanded when he got Bill alone. Nominally alone. They were in a clank. (It used to be the swamp-strider and was currently serving as a mobile laboratory.) If none of the Jägers could hear them he'd eat Zog's hat, which would be unlikely to go over well and would almost certainly be indigestible. 

"Pretty sure it's called a one-night stand," Bill said quellingly.

Barry nearly laughed and managed to glower at him instead, because it hadn't exactly been a joke. It might have been nice if it were. Although it was a response, which was something. "You know perfectly well what I meant." 

Bill shrugged, reached for an anti-proportional fork, and started humming. Barry had just about given up when he said, "Being in love didn't work out. I thought I might as well try something else."

That was all Barry got out of him on the subject. And at the next town, Bill accepted the first invitation he got and disappeared again, leaving Barry with the delighted generals. 

This became part of the pattern. 

They'd find an army of wasps and revenants, aimlessly destroying things or -- as they discovered almost by accident -- heading for a leftover hive engine that for whatever reason hadn't yet activated. Or they'd find the rampaging clanks or monsters that had wandered off after some other Spark's death. Or they'd find more intelligent enemies -- surviving Sparks or other lords who'd decided this was a great time to conquer or raid their neighbors. Barry was aware of the irony of using the Jägers to make them stop, but Bill seemed immune and it did work. The really intelligent ones just ran when they saw them coming. 

On a few occasions their scouts caught a robbery in progress on the roads and took it upon themselves to stage a rescue of their own. On several of these occasions both the robbers and their victims proceeded to panic and throw all their valuables at the Jägers in the hope of being left alive. Stosh got snickered at for days when he didn't duck fast enough and a large gold watch cut his forehead. Bill and Barry managed to catch most of the victims and return their property. The robbers they treated as they used to treat Sparks -- gave them a good talking-to and then either left them terrified or inspired to change their ways, or took them along.

And when the latest crisis had been averted and they went into a village or town for news and supplies, food from a kitchen they didn't have to build and company they hadn't shared the road with for months or longer, Bill would say yes to the first unmarried woman who asked him to bed. Rumor, again, seemed to get ahead of them. The women started asking earlier. Bill started going with them both before and after meals, and drank less, possibly because he didn't have time. Short, curvy blondes or women with a certain look about the mouth and eyes were the only ones Bill turned down -- and there were some Barry was pretty sure he tactfully started off with a bath in insecticidal soap -- with an "I'm sorry, you remind me too much of her" that most of them didn't seem able to resent.

This was arguably safer than drinking, as most of Bill's paramours wanted exactly what they were getting and the Jägers could be relied on to interfere if any of them had, say, hostile accomplices, whereas expecting interference if the Heterodyne got a really stupid idea while drunk was a little unfair. But Bill seemed to be doing it the way he _would_ get drunk, as a way to briefly lose himself, as a kind of rebellion against the long years he'd loved Lucrezia. As the opposite of falling in love. 

Convincing the Jägers there was a problem was naturally hopeless. They approved heartily, even if Bill didn't respond to their encouragement or congratulations either. After a few nights in the same town, when the women had a chance to start comparing notes, Khrizhan regarded a few of them at their table and shook his head gravely. "Iz goot hyu brodder is beginning to look at vimmen again, but do hyu know if he has considered bringink some of dem vit us?"

"He's invited them if they want to come," said Barry. "Although he's also said it's just as well they turned him down, look what happened last time."

This cast a pall over the table for all of a few seconds before Zog grinned at him. "Oh vell. Hyu vant to hear vot dey say about him?"

"Not really," said Barry.

"Ah, vhy not? Iz all goot."

"I don't need to hear it," Barry said a little testily. "They're probably saying he's skilled and considerate, dangerous and mysterious and a wonderful human being, and he cries on their shoulder afterward." 

They blinked at him. Khrizhan ventured after a moment, "How did hyu know?"

Barry sighed. "I have _met_ my brother. And I don't think Lucrezia left because she wasn't satisfied in bed." And he could see Bill's reddened eyes when he came back, although maybe he shouldn't have said anything about that. 

"Hyu could alvays say yes to a few of dem too," Zog said hopefully. "Dey vould appreciate it."

Barry rubbed a hand over his face. "I know, but I'd really rather not." He hadn't ever really fallen in love. Not like Bill had. He'd rather not do it the way Bill had, all things considered, but he didn't think he wanted this either. 

Two more months later, Bill was actually sitting with Barry near the end of the evening -- although Barry fully expected him to disappear as soon as he finished eating -- when a man about Barry's own height with nearly as much muscle as Adam came up to their table and thumped his hands down on it. In his peripheral vision, Barry noticed several Jägers look up. Bill did not. "Bill Heterodyne," the new arrival said. "I'm Toma."

Bill looked up and met his eyes, but didn't speak for several seconds. 

The new arrival looked nonplussed by this, and Barry saw his eyes flicker sideways to take in the alert Jägers. After a moment he went on with what was probably not meant to be manifestly fake heartiness, "In light of all the stories, I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding...." He paused to wait for a response. Bill continued to wait patiently, or perhaps uninterestedly. Toma finally said, "Wouldn't think you the type to stiff a whore." 

Bill raised an eyebrow very slowly. "Who?"

"Stela." He pointed at one of the women Bill had gone off with earlier. Tall, with dark-brown hair and light-brown skin, tired and too thin for her bones. She looked about as dreary as Bill did, although she'd seemed a little more relaxed when they first came back. She glanced up at the sound of her name and then frowned sharply, shoulders hunching. Toma said, "You _seem_ to've forgotten to pay."

"I don't recall being asked to," Bill said. "If I did forget, I'll pay her." Unspoken, but very clear in the air nonetheless, _not you_.

Toma's lips tightened, but he nodded and lifted a hand to beckon to Stela. She frowned harder, and he said, "Just a minute," and crossed to her. Barry heard him say, probably not thinking they could hear, "He says he'll pay you. Come on and we can forget all about this." 

"I told you before that I didn't ask him," Stela said, low and angry. "I didn't do it for you. It was the first thing I've done for _myself_ in three years."

"Your time and your bed aren't your own, you little slut," he growled, and Barry pushed his chair back to get up, starting to feel irritated, too, that Bill wasn't even looking. Then Toma grabbed Stela's wrist, she gasped in pain, and Bill's chair was empty and rocking back down onto its feet. 

Bill propelled Toma to arm's length, holding _his_ wrist in a way that ground the bones together, and looked at Stela with eyes that were more _present_ than Barry had seen since they heard about the explosion. "Maybe I should ask you to come to Mechanicsburg regardless," he said. "Unless you have a reason to keep working for this idiot?" 

She rubbed her arm and looked away. "He took me in after my village was destroyed by the Other," she said, and didn't look up to see Bill shut his eyes. "Brought me inside the walls and didn't tell people I might turn into a revenant or that it was my fault when the wasps came. But I don't want to work for him if I can get any other job." 

Bill said, with an effort, "Come with us and you can do anything you want to." He glanced at Toma, who had given up trying to pry Bill's fingers loose and fallen to his knees, and raised his voice slightly. "Is he blackmailing anybody else to work for him?"

He was. Bill dumped Toma on the floor, bought them all dinner, and returned to sit down in his own chair with a thump. 

Stela gave Toma an uncertain glance and then followed Bill back to their table. Barry smiled at her and took up the conversation, since Bill had evidently decided he was done with words and only nodded to them to excuse himself when the woman he'd agreed to meet after dinner came to claim him. Stela's eyes followed them. 

Barry said, "He's been doing that a lot." 

"I heard." Stela picked at the rust in a hairline crack on the tabletop with her fingernail, and then confessed, "I sort of feel like I took advantage of him."

Barry blinked. "Don't," he said. "He's perfectly capable of saying no, he just doesn't much lately."

"Ah." A pause. "It's not really cheering him up, is it?"

"Well," said Barry, feeling it would be unkind to tell her he found the entire situation worrying, even (especially) if she came closer to agreeing with him than anyone else did, "I'm not exactly sure if anything would do that, but I think it makes him feel better that it makes other people happy."

"Oh, well then." Stela's eyes came alive suddenly with suppressed laughter. "I'll try not to be gloomy, then, it'd be a shame if he thought it didn't work." 

Barry, rather to his own surprise, grinned. "Nice of you. Don't feel there's any pressure, though." 

"I'll keep it in mind," she said. "What have you been doing -- trying to keep track of him?"

"That got a lot easier once he called the Jägers out," said Barry. "It was getting to where I could barely keep up with him, and we still weren't fast enough--" He broke off and closed his eyes for a moment. Hadn't quite meant to say that. "I _am_ sorry."

Stela smiled wanly. "Even heroes can't be everywhere at once. If you're blaming yourselves, you're about the only ones." 

Nobody else knew where the Other had gotten her start. "Rationally, I know we did everything we could." 

"I have some idea how comforting that is." Barry felt rather guilty about not being able to think of a response to that other than smiling ruefully at her -- he didn't want to stick her with carrying the conversation. After a moment she said, "Tell me about Mechanicsburg? I always wanted to visit, but I never had the chance before."

"I'm not even sure where to start," he said, bemused. "It's -- home. Everybody is... nearly as enthusiastic about us as they were about the past Heterodynes. Which is a lot of enthusiasm." 

Stela absorbed this for a moment, looked around at the Jägers, and said, "I bet it is." 

"It's in relatively good shape, actually. It's fairly self-sufficient, so aside from the initial damage to the Castle, it's held up well even lately. Even with only half the Jägers, the rest of it is full of... Mechanicsburgers." This explanation was perhaps not much use to anyone who didn't already know what he was talking about. He _was_ tired. "You'll be all right there. For as long as you choose to stay." Barry paused. Took a breath. "Tell me about your home?"

The shock of pain and relief in her eyes told him it had been the right question, and she told her own stories, breathless with humor and sorrow, until she leaned her mouth hard against her fist and stared fixedly at the wall. Barry put an arm around her shoulders and she stopped fighting the tears. 

Bill eventually came back and stopped, looking worried. "Homesick," Barry said, which summed things up so poorly that Stela choked on laughter for a second instead. "Speaking of which. When _do_ you mean to go back to Mechanicsburg?"

"We have to start tomorrow," Bill said, sitting down, and the immediate concern drained off to reveal something desolate and ominous. "Klaus is back."

* * *


End file.
